I started the game of Go in January 2012. Go (aka Weiqi in Chinese or Baduk in Korean) is a game of territory. Go is interesting because it is so vague and abstract on terms of good moves. Because of this, computers will never go further than humans. Go’s strategy is all about style, how you want the game’s flow to go, your depth in technique and reading ahead and your practice. Go is approximately 4000 years old, one of the oldest board games along with shogi (Japanese Chess), which is about 3700 years old. Go is a game where there are 361 points on the board. You need to try to get more points than your opponent, playing as either Black or White. When you surround all four sides of an opponent’s piece, you remove it from the board as apoint. After every place on the board is filled, you count the points that you have surrounded. However, as Black wouldget the privilege of the first play, White would have compensated points (6.5 points to eliminate draws).

This is how I started. I was in school one day, and I had all my work done, so I got bored. I picked up the first book I saw, and it turned out to be a manga called Hikaru No Go. Manga stories are Japanese comics that were developed in the late 19th century. Manga is usually in black and white, but there are many colourful versions that exist now. I started reading the comic about 6 months before I started playing. After I got a little further into the manga, I couldn’t really follow along anymore. So then, I started trying to learn online how to play Go. In the beginning, I thought the rules and play were really simple and I thought I could master it very quickly.Then I got interested in the actual game; I decided to find out as much information as I could on the internet about tactics and strategies. That’s when I found out that Go was actually a very complicated board game.

Coincidentally, I happened to have a friend in my class who was stronger at Go than me at that time. He taught me some of the basics and played with me whenever there was free time. At that time, he was able to beat me easily, on a 19x19 Go board. Soon, I was looking online for any free audio lectures I could find. After little success, my parents found out about the Golden Key Cultural Centre, a place that offers Go lessons in Mississauga, during the month of May, 2012. On June 18th, I started taking Go lessons in the beginner class. After ten weeks, I advanced to the intermediate class, along with other classmates. Around that time, I also started playing online Go on the KGS Kiseido Go Server. With the useful lessons from the Go teachers, I gained more strength and soon, I was able to beat my friend easily thanks to the professional lessons I received. Now, I still learn Go at the Golden Key Cultural Centre and look forward to it every week.

Illustration by Vicky Liu

Hello, greetings to anyone who just happens to be or is intentionally reading this. My name is Richard Bao. I’m 12 years old, in the grade six. My birthday is on April 9th. I attend Thomas Street Middle School. I live in Mississauga,and some of my hobbies are listening to rap music and a little bit of classical music. I also like playing soccer, playing Go, and I like to hang around with my friends. I’m pretty different from others because I have never wished to be someone else in my life. If anyone has a problem with that, then buy a happy meal.

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